


A Vampire AU Because Why Not~?

by ScrawlingStories



Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, I mean that's not really news but yanno~, M/M, Rad's kinda a Drama Queen, but I don't think it's too bad but lmk if I need tags for those lol, man I wanted this to post on Halloween but I forgot about time zones, uhh there's like 2-ish times where Rad imagines some not-exactly-gory stuff, uhhhh I dunno this is just another self-indulgent dream-turned-fic lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScrawlingStories/pseuds/ScrawlingStories
Summary: *snorts* Me? Have another piece of a dream turned into a silly story?? I would never~Idk, what it says on the tin. The Boxbots are somehow vampires now apparently~ :yc





	A Vampire AU Because Why Not~?

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of Halloween???? Have a weird vampire AU lmfao~
> 
> I wanted to have this ready to post before Halloween actually ended for me, but alas. Foiled by timezones again~ TwT #clockblocked
> 
> Anyways!! Please Enjoy~? ¯\\_( ᐛ )_/¯

Rad’s keys jangled quietly against his hand as he locked up the Bodega for the night. He’d had to work until close by himself tonight, but he didn’t mind. There was something kind of nice about having the store all to himself—they honestly didn’t get _that_ many customers after dark, especially on the weekdays—and he liked the little tingle of extra responsibility he felt at being trusted to close the store up all on his own. Not that he would ever admit to that unless it was under purely boastful circumstances, but he could admit it to himself at the very least.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets after he was sure everything was locked up tight. The plastic bag hooked around his wrist crinkled as it bumped against his leg, and he flinched away from the coldness that seeped instantly through his jeans. Those six jumbo frozen burritos had his name written all over them, just as soon as he got home to his beautiful microwave and supply of cheesy horror movies to marathon. Which would take longer to get to now that his van was in the shop and he had to walk the whole way home, but he didn’t mind that either. It wasn’t _that_ far of a walk, really, and it wasn’t _that_ cold outside yet—and he kind of liked strolling the city at night sometimes. It was nice. And at his skill level, he could easily protect himself from any possible skeevy denizens of the night if need be.

However, it seemed that tonight he was going to face a more familiar enemy than back-alley shadow baddies that wanted to jump him for his pocket change. The subject in question was walking along one of the converging streets a little farther down the road, his bright green paint job standing out even as he tried to keep to the shadows, and Rad’s brows furrowed as he watched him without altering his own pace. The robot’s movements were jerky and awkward, not at all like the smoothly-operating machine that Rad was more than familiar with from having to fight day after day back at the plaza, and all he was doing at the moment was walking in a straight line. Rad’s curiosity piqued.

“Raymond?” he called out, and the robot jerked to a stop and whipped around to face him.

“Oh… Radicles,” he said with an acknowledging nod when he realized who owned the sudden mysterious voice cutting through the quiet night air, but the entire exchange was oddly stiff, even for a robot. Rad narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“What’cha doin’?” he asked with forced nonchalance as his continued steps brought him closer and closer to the robot. Raymond’s eyes flashed, but now that he was closer Rad could see that they were off somehow, too.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, _hero,”_ Raymond replied tersely, turning to start walking again—but Rad wasn’t having any of that.

“Nope!” he chimed, darting forward to block Raymond’s path. “You are being incredibly shady right now, and I don't trust that for a minute. So unless you wanna automatically have this escalate to a fight right here in the middle of the street: _spill.”_

Raymond continued to glare daggers at him for a few moments before his shoulders sagged just the slightest bit. In fact, all of him sagged for a moment, and Rad instinctively almost darted forward to steady him before a mechanical hand jerkily waved him away. That was… _really_ off, actually, but more so in the way that tugged at Rad’s concern for the robot himself rather than any potential victims to whatever shenanigans he might be up to. Raymond let himself fall heavily into a city bench sitting only a few steps away, wincing as the wooden structure creaked under the impact. Rad followed him but remained standing a decidedly safe distance away, waiting for his answer that hadn’t come yet.

“If you _must_ know,” Raymond sneered in response to the expectant look with a heavily-implied _you nosey little cretin,_ “I’m out for a bite to eat.”

Rad blinked a few times in the silence that followed as he tried to make sense of the explanation. He came up blank. “...What? But… you’re a robot?”

Raymond huffed a sigh. “Perceptive, aren’t you?” he commented drily, but Rad only had that annoyingly expectant look on his face again, so he rolled his eyes and elaborated, “Yes, some robots are powered purely on batteries or electricity or what have you—but Boxmore robots also have to feed from organic sources.”

“...You mean like…” Rad lifted his shopping bag hopefully even as he felt his heart begin to sink into his gut, the unease bleeding clearly into his watery smile, “late night burrito runs?”

He received a completely-unimpressed glare for his pitiful attempt at innocence. _“Living_ organic sources, Rad. _People._ Or rather, their blood, mostly.”

Rad swallowed. “Oh.” And then the realization caught up with him. “Wait, _what!?_ You guys are like—vampires??”

“For lack of a better word, yes, I suppose so,” Raymond replied, crossing his arms over his chest almost protectively.

“And how long has this been a thing??”

Raymond pulled a face. “Uh… Forever? What do you mean?”

“Okay, so you mean to tell me that I’ve been fighting y’all on the daily for _ages_ now, and yet I somehow never even knew I’ve _actually_ been battling vamp-bots this entire time?” Rad staggered dramatically, letting himself collapse onto the far end of the bench and throwing a hand over his chest. Raymond didn’t appear amused. “My whole world is shaken. I’m shooketh.”

“...Say that word in front of me _ever_ again and there will be nothing but a blast hole where your ribcage used to be.”

Rad whistled low at the particularly barbed comment, absently rubbing his hand over the phantom pain in his chest at the imagery. “Wow, you really _are_ in a bad mood, huh? I mean, I’m used to insults from you on a regular day, but _that_ was just... _dang...”_

“Yes, well, you would be a little high-strung too if you were in my position.” Rad raised his eyebrows, waiting for elaboration yet again, and Raymond rolled his eyes, yet again. _That_ was what was different! Their color was off, closer to a sickly, dim yellow-orange color than their usual bright, brilliant red. It really set a completely different mood around the robot for being such a small detail to change—or maybe that was just because it was combined with everything else. Either way, Rad didn’t like it. “If my tank hits empty then I fully shut down. Boom, gone, into a new body that basically immediately needs to feed again, which is a hassle and a half and makes Father furious.” Rad decided not to voice his comment that Boxman really should have thought about that _before_ he decided to power his robots in such an obscure way—but he definitely thought it. _“Which,_ if you happen to be done taking up enough of my valuable, valuable time…”

“So wait, how’s that work exactly?” Rad asked, now genuinely curious about the whole situation and overflowing with dozens upon dozens of questions, mostly centered around how a robotic vampire compared to anything he already knew about organic vampires.

“Do you _really_ want me to sit here and begin explaining every single biochemical and mechanical detail that goes into the proper functioning of a vampiric robot until I literally explode like the ticking time bomb I am?” Raymond snapped, and Rad actually flinched back a little bit at the sheer venom in his voice. “Because I _really_ don’t have time for that right now, Rad. I’m legitimately running on fumes here.”

Rad wrung his hands nervously in the confines of his lap. If everything Raymond was saying was actually true—including that Boxman would get super angry if he went fully empty and had to reboot, which Rad didn’t doubt—then he should probably let him go... But he had _so many_ questions—and not all just for his own enjoyment. “Okay. Two more questions, and then I’ll let you go. Well, depending on the answers.” Raymond shot him another glare, but it was weaker this time. “One: Do you guys... always let yourselves get down this low before… refilling, or..?”

Raymond shook his head. “We have a setup for feeding that’s supposed to prevent stuff like this, but things have been really hectic recently and I accidentally lost track of how long it had been since my last feed.”

Rad decides not to press for more details on that at the moment, even though he _desperately_ wants to. He’s only got one question left, and he needs to ask the biggest one that’s been setting off his hero alarm bells from minute one. “But you don’t like… _kill_ people when you drink from them, do you?”

Raymond scoffed, a surprisingly bitter sound rising up from somewhere deeper down inside than just his machinery. _“No,_ we don’t. We might be villains, but that doesn’t mean we completely lack morality, Rad; you _know_ that. We just follow different compasses from what most heroes follow. And we Boxmores do _not_ go around slaughtering people just for the sake of ‘being evil’.” And if Rad hadn’t known any better, he almost would have thought that he detected genuine offence in his tone at being asked such a horrible thing.

If he didn’t know any better, he might have thought that he genuinely felt kind of bad now for even asking, too.

But he did know better. “So, what, you’re just gonna go track down some random organic to nibble on now?”

“That’s question number three. Interview over.”

Rad huffed. “C’mon, that one doesn’t count. That’s not part of the interview questioning—that’s just basic Hero Protecting Innocents from Villains questioning. So you _have_ to answer.”

He really didn’t, but even though he pursed his lips in another unamused pout, Raymond didn’t look like he was up for actually trying to argue his way out of it. "Yes, I suppose I'll have to.”

Actually though, he didn’t look like he was going to be up for much of _anything_ at the moment, let alone a full-blown chase sequence through a maze of dark back-alleyways like Rad always saw in his low-grade movies. Raymond looked even more exhausted than he had when he’d first collapsed onto the bench, and that was really an impressive feat to manage, in Rad’s opinion. He looked... really rough.

“Are you… even gonna be able to manage that?” Rad asked, blinking at himself as he realized how genuinely concerned he sounded for his literal enemy.

But if Raymond registered the tone he didn’t show it, not even bothering to point out the fourth question as he lowered his head to run his fingers through his hair absently. “I’ll manage,” he replied softly. “Or… I have to _try,_ at least.”

Silence stretched between them for a few moments before Rad sighed and rolled his shoulders, fighting the words that suddenly teetered on the edge of his tongue. Was he seriously considering this? He didn’t want to, not _really,_ but considering all of the alternatives… “Well, I mean, you can like… drink… from _me_ if you want, I guess.”

He pointedly kept his eyes trained on a brightly-colored billboard ad across the street, but he didn’t miss the way Raymond’s head snapped up to stare at him in astonishment. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Raymond blinked, confusion rolling off of him in waves, and he seemed at a loss for words for a few moments. “You’re just… offering? Just like that? To _me?”_

“If you don’t want to then just say so,” Rad snapped, his resolve rapidly dissolving the longer he was letting himself think about what he was actually offering to do here.

“No, no—I do!” Raymond apologized, raising his hands placatingly before running one through his hair in a much more visibly anxious gesture. “I’m just… kind of confused as to… _why?”_

Rad snorted. _Ditto._ “Well, I’m a hero, aren’t I? That means helping people in need; even the ones I would normally rather not. And you just dropped that massive sob story on me, so what am I really supposed to do? Just leave you all pathetic like this to go reboot before you even get halfway down some nearby alleyway? What kind of hero would _that_ be?” He finally chanced a glance away from the billboard, finding Raymond’s eyes wide and vulnerable as they gazed at him with a conflicted look, and something twisted in Rad again because, _really,_ what right did Raymond have to be looking at him like that when Rad was feeling it ten times worse? “Well? Let’s get this over with already then; you don’t got all night to just sit here, and neither do I.”

Rad tipped his head to bare the side of his neck closest to Raymond, and he didn’t miss the robot’s sharp intake of breath. Raymond hesitated for another moment or two before finally shifting a little closer down the bench, and Rad’s heart jumped into his throat at the sudden proximity. He was really doing this. Oh god, he was _really_ doing this. He was really going to let an enemy vampire-bot drink his blood right here on this city bench tonight. _God_ did being a hero and Good Samaritan _suck._

Raymond braced a hand against the other side of Rad’s neck to hold him steady as he leaned in, and Rad braced _himself_ for the sharp sting he knew was coming as Raymond’s fangs tore through his skin to get to the delicious blood pulsing down below. Except… the feeling wasn’t painful at all, actually. It was really kind of... soft? And warm, and wet, and moving—wait wait wait, was that his _tongue??_

“Dude, what the _fu—!?”_ Rad started in, but the expletive cut off just in time as Raymond’s fangs finally did find their mark and sank sharply into his skin. It hurt, kind of, but not in the way Rad had been expecting; it felt closer to the pain of jamming his toe against the counter than getting stabbed repeatedly with a jagged handful of rusty kitchen knives. ...Okay, so _maybe_ his expectations on the pain front were a _little_ exaggerated and not-at-all influenced by all of the cheesy, inaccurate horror movies that he liked to watch in his spare time, but could you really blame him? A real-life vampire _(-robot)_ , right here, sinking his teeth into him and sucking his _actual_ blood out from his _actual_ body, here, in real life, with _real-life_ actual consequences.

_. . . Oh g o d._

All of a sudden a thousand different alarm bells began screeching in Rad’s head, and none of them were pleasant. Was he _actually_ letting Raymond feed on him right now? What if he ended up drinking too much? He’d said that they didn’t kill their victims, but he’s a villain—he totally could have been lying, and Rad had just believed him without even questioning if he was telling the truth or not. Even though he had seemed genuine in the admission and hadn’t really had any reason to lie to Rad about it at the time… but still! Fine then; if he wasn’t going to go back on his word and suck all of the blood from Rad’s body until he was so dry that even the dust bunnies wouldn’t have him, there was still a whole plethora of other things that Rad hadn’t even thought to factor in until it was already too late! _Was he even up to date on his tetanus shots????_

But then, it seemed that almost as quickly as it started, it was already done. Raymond swallowed for a final time as Rad pulled himself back out of his panicked daze, removing his fangs from Rad’s neck and running his tongue gently over the wound once, twice—Rad shivered—three times before pulling away again. His eyes were now back to the deep, full red shade that they were supposed to be, shining appreciatively beneath his lashes as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Wait, is… Is that it?”

Raymond grinned, sharp teeth glinting a surprising pristine white in a mouth that had been full of blood mere moments before. “You _did_ say you didn’t have all night,” he reminded him.

“Yeah, I know, but that was like… I dunno, that felt _really_ quick,” Rad said haltingly, because… well, he wasn’t exactly sure why. He had just kind of expected… more? He hadn’t even had time to get all the way through his list of Worst Case Scenarios before he was rocketed forward into one of the Best ones: being absolutely fine. “You sure you, like…  got enough?”

Raymond’s eyes flashed for a moment, brow arching curiously at the question. “Enough to tide me over until I should be able to get my schedule properly situated again, yes.”

“Umm… Okay…” Rad said hesitantly, even though he still wasn’t quite sure why. He was just feeling weirded out from the whole experience. Wow. He’d really worked himself up over nothing, huh? He felt… kind of really silly now, actually—but there was no way he could let Raymond know that. “B-because I mean it, if you go running off now to munch on some poor unsuspecting rando now that you have _some_ energy again—”

“I’m _good,_ Rad,” Raymond promised with a tiny laugh, standing up from the bench and stretching his arms over his head, seemingly back to the same old Raymond that Rad had always known. The one that wasn’t secretly a vampire—the one that _didn’t_ just drink his blood. “Heading straight back to Boxmore now, I promise.” He held out his pinky finger pointedly for a moment before sweeping down into a low bow. “Thank you, O chivalrous hero, for your valiant donation to the Don’t Piss Off Lord-Boxdad Fund~”

“...I think that freshly-fed you might be even weirder to experience than running-on-fumes you.”

Raymond snorted softly and straightened again. “Whatever. Just as long as you know that I’m genuinely grateful. You saved me a lot of unnecessary trouble when you really didn’t have to, so you can check off your mandatory Hero's Good Deed For The Day or whatever it is that drove you to actually do this for me.” He waved flippantly over his shoulder as he presumably began his trek back to the factory. “And now it’ll be just that much easier to kick your butt again when we battle tomorrow~!”

“You know, for someone who says he’s grateful, you sure have a funny way of showing it!” Rad called after him, and Raymond’s laughter was faint but definitely still loud enough for Rad to hear as it drifted back to him over the still night air. Rad pursed his lips and ran his fingertips over the site of his new wound, gingerly at first and then with more force when he couldn’t even feel the puncture wounds, let alone any kind of residual pain. Was that normal? Oh god, did he need to go home and like, wash this or something? What if it got infected? _Was he going to get lockjaw now????_

He shuddered, and the motion turned into a shiver as a breeze suddenly whipped the nighttime air around him into a chilly gust. He zipped his jacket all the way up and tucked his chin into the collar as he stood up from the bench. Aw, man: his burritos had totally gone all soggy and half-melted in the bag by now. Dang it… That totally messed with the flavor. His entire night? Completely ruined now. Typical. He huffed to himself as he turned and continued his walk in the opposite direction of the plaza. Well, that’s what he gets for being a good person, apparently. A happy enemy robot and a bunch of soggy burritos.

And probably-tetanus.

...Dang it.

**Author's Note:**

> Meheheh, I dunno, I kinda think I might turn this one into a series or smth because I really grew to like the idea of the whole robotic-vampires thing, so we'll see if anyone other than me feels that way~ x,3
> 
> ((Lbrh: I tagged it Radmond bc I'm already planning on _probably_ writing more for this regardless so~  >w>;; we'll see~))


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